


Pyrite

by silverr



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Comes Back Wrong, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Irony, Other, POV Second Person, Pining, Questionable Consent, Resurrection, Revenants
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-05-31 15:48:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19429132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverr/pseuds/silverr
Summary: The price of resurrection is always paid by the one brought back.Always.





	1. The Necromancer's Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [verdarach](https://archiveofourown.org/users/verdarach/gifts).



> A thank you to **Nalanzu** for beta.

.

.

When they come to you and give you the news, you race for the door, past the shocked faces of your students and apprentices, abandoning a crucible you had watched over without sleeping for ten days and nine hours. 

.

The sickroom is choked with your beloved's useless family. Some shrink from you; those that do not, the ones that try to block your way, you push aside.

Your beloved's eyes are closed, and their graceful hands are motionless on the coverlet. Except for the unnatural hue of their skin, they could be asleep.

You reach out to touch them, but as you do the mother catches your wrist in a talon. "How _dare_ you show your face here?" she whispers fiercely. _"You_ are the case of this! This happened because of _you!"_

You cannot, _will_ not, let this harridan see the churning of your heart, and so you turn your grief to anger. "How dare _you,_ madam," you reply. "I took your child from the gutter of your home and set them at my right hand—"

"So that you could—" she begins to say.

"—so that I could do _what?"_ you hiss. "Acknowledge and develop their natural intelligence? Feed and clothe them in a manner befitting their nature, rather than their origin? Raise them above all others to be my First Apprentice?" Your voice breaks. It is tempting, so tempting, to curse them all, this dross that had held your beloved back, and now seeks to keep them from you. "For eight years your family has reaped the benefits of my generosity, your greedy hands always thrust out for more, and now, what? Have you run out of places to bury the gold I have given you?"

The father narrows his eyes. "All your fine words and lies cannot hide the truth! We know how they suffered, toiling at unholy tasks in your filthy laboratory, all to enhance you! Your power, your reputation! And all the while, you repaid their devotion by forcing yourself on them!"

You are as stunned as if they had struck you physically. Surely this is not how others see you? "I would never!" you choke out, knowing they won't understand. You had always cherished them as the reflection of all that is beautiful in the world, all that is exalted and pure! That this accident has deprived you of them—

You can bear no more, and flee.

.

Hours pass as you sit by your fire. Minor apprentices bring you food and drink, but you are feasting on your grief, and want nothing else.

You had known they were special from the moment they had been sent to you. Sold into servitude to settle a family debt, the ragged urchin in the middle years of youth had carried themselves with surprising dignity. They had not been awed, as were your other servants and your students, by the trappings and accoutrements of your station—you had but recently been appointed Royal Thaumaturge—but instead addressed you almost as an equal. (Some thought you should have taken offense at this, but you had seen even then that beneath their childlike spirit was a fierce curiosity and untamed intelligence.) Recognizing as you did their worth, you immediately released them from servitude and bestowed a scholarship in order to nurture a love of learning in them. After they had been taught to read and write, you took them on as an apprentice. 

Under your care they grew tall and bloomed, drinking in your attention like a sunflower, standing close to take in your every word, eager to have you guide their hands in the tasks you set them. In return, their mere presence began to re-awaken your own joy in the pursuit of knowledge. As they progressed you found them more and more in harmony with you, their thoughts and wishes and interests an extension of your own, and you began to think of them less as a student and more as a missing piece, an echo of your very soul. It was soon after elevating them to apprentice that you had, in an excess of feeling, expressed the hope that your association would grow ever-deeper over the years, and your wish—no, your _need_ —to keep them by your side always.

After this confession you had noticed a change. They no longer stood close to you, or looked you in the eye, or allowed you to steady their hand. It was as if clouds were covering your sun, drenching a summer's day with chilly gloom.

This silent rejection had devastated you. Privately you had alternated between weeping and raging—sometimes at them, sometimes at yourself—but at all other times, and most especially in their presence, you had bled in silence. If you could not bask in the noon of their love, at least you could continue to savor the faint glimmers of their presence as they worked alongside your other apprentices and students.

And then, on the verge of the day you had planned to elevate them to First Apprentice, they had come to you, requesting that you release them from apprenticeship! Unable to contain yourself, you had accused them of disloyalty and ungratefulness, and demanded to know who now had primacy in their affections. (To your later shame, in your jealous anger you had also seized and shaken them.) At first they had sworn there was no one, but when you said that you could not release them because apprenticeship was a binding contract, they nodded, and with downcast eyes they finally admitted that the reason they wished to leave was because… it was you who was distracting them from their studies.

Immediately you had regretted your outburst, and knelt before them to beg forgiveness. They in turn had begged forgiveness of you, and, with the same frank innocence that had captivated you from the first, had said that, as you already had possession of their mind and heart and soul, you might as well take their body as well.

It was their adoration as much as their perfection that had ignited your carnal desires. During the seven all-too-brief weeks that followed, you received from your beloved pleasures you had barely dared imagine—and then, as if the very cosmos itself was envious of your joy, came the accident that had taken your beloved from you. Alone one night in the apothecarium, they had been working with the rarest of your arcane compounds when they had apparently dropped a vial of a poisonous liquid, releasing a deadly vapor. By the time they were found, nothing could be done.

.

The flames in your fireplace mock you, every log consumed a harsh reminder of how ephemeral is life, how transient is flesh. _Cast your own heart into the fire,_ they say. _Reduce your love to ember and then ash. Only then will your agony subside._

A moth flickers at the edge of your vision, mesmerized by the light. As it immolates itself, you recall how your Master, on their deathbed, had with a trembling hand, given you a key, and pointed to the locked case that held their rarest and most powerful compendiums and enchiridions. "Take the small notebook you find therein," they had instructed, "and throw it on the fire." 

The one they meant was easy to identify, though you had never noticed it before. And why would you have? The spine, barely wider than your little finger, was untitled, bound in a brownish-grey, and half-hidden behind its larger neighbor at the end of a shelf like a shy bumpkin shrinking into the corner of a ballroom. Why should this little drab little cousin, the only book you had never seen consulted, be the one the Master insisted be destroyed?

You had opened it and seen that the first few pages were notes in your Master's handwriting, in a code incomprehensible; the rest of the pages were blank. "What, this?" you had asked as you turned and held it up.

"Yes, yes!" the Master had said. "If you esteem me at all, if you value your sanity, throw it onto the fire unread!"

You esteemed and perhaps even loved your Master, truly you did, but because your love of knowledge had been even greater, you had, as you knelt before the fireplace, quietly torn out those inscribed pages and slipped them inside your shirt before placing the pillaged notebook on the flames. 

When you turned from the fireplace, your Master was gone.

You had at first justified the theft by telling yourself that the pages might give you some insight into your Master, but as you grew older, and the secrets the pages contained proved beyond your ability to unlock, you had admitted that your true motive had been the hope that the pages hid a spell of great power.

Ashamed of both your betrayal and your failure, you had buried the pages at the bottom of the ironbound chest at the foot of your bed. 

Now, guilt seizes you, and you determine that you will, at last, fulfill your Master's dying wish. 

You retrieve the pages from their hiding place, but as you bend to place them in the fire the old ink fades and new writing appears. Bold letters and detailed sigils in glistening dark red, looking as if they had just been inked and not yet blotted. 

_Notes on reviving the dead,_ the first line says.

.

You threaten and bribe the physician until they reveal that it will take your beloved six days to die, and that they will not wake as their life ebbs away.

You vow to use every moment.

First you dismiss all your students and apprentices, and order your servants to begin packing the greater part of your books, equipment, arcane materials, and your other possessions for transport. You mention in casual conversation with various merchants that the death of your apprentice has soured the city for you, so much so that you are withdrawing to a secluded villa in a far-distant mountainous land to devote yourself to scholarship . 

Once you are assured that this news has spread to the right ears—fools will make of the news what they please—you then compose a letter to your beloved's parents. You apologize effusively for any offense, offer sympathy for their impending loss, and mention that, although it is customary for a Master to manage all expenses related to an apprentice—a custom that of course would include arranging and paying for an apprentice's funeral and interment—if they so wish it is their prerogative to refuse this final gesture on your part. As you expect, they send an ill-tempered reply demanding that you uphold custom, and listing their requirements for a lavish funeral. They say that it is the least you can do: truer words than they know!

Meanwhile, having sent your most trusted servants daily to the prisons and poorhouses to acquire suitable subjects from among the dead and dying, you use the corpses that you have saved from the anonymity of a pauper's grave to practice the resurrection spell. Your first attempts end badly, but you learn from each, and soon you know not only how to raise the dead, but also how to use the vital force from those previously resurrected to fuel one newly-risen.

Finally, you prepare the deepest vaults beneath the manor. Generations of thaumaturges before you had used these secret rooms for the study and practice of the forbidden arts, and had used the various cells and oubliettes beneath to contain the dangerous creatures they had summoned; now, you set your new servants the task of purifying and sanctifying these spaces for you and your beloved, and furnishing them with those items necessary for your happiness.

.

You watch the funeral procession from afar as your beloved—their hands folded serenely across their chest, their face surrounded by a draft of white flower petals—is carried into the church. Afterwards the mother makes a show of wailing as the body is wrapped in a burial shroud. 

Once the family and mourners are gone it is a simple matter to waylay the undertaker long enough to substitute one linen-wrapped corpse for another. Having exchanged dross for gold, you hurry away with your treasure.

.

Deep underground, in the center of your sanctuary, you arrange your beloved in the inscribed circle. You anoint them, and place certain gemstones on their forehead and hands, over their navel and heart, and above the crown of their hair. You position your five newest risen servants at the five cardinal points, and then, when the moment is right, you draw a sigil with your own blood, and press it against your beloved's lips. As the blood flares and dissolves like a mothwing ember, you pull the bestowed life from the five servants and thread it into your beloved. The servants collapse like broken marionettes, and your beloved opens their eyes.

You unwrap them from their shroud. You think at first their face is as blank as the first ice of winter, reflecting nothing, but soon you see that they are simply overwhelmed, brimming with gratitude for the transfiguration you have wrought. Their nude form has the translucence of agate; every small flaw they had in life has been wiped away, leaving only serenity and an intoxicating beauty. 

"Death becomes you," you say, marveling. Your fingers stroke their still-glossy hair, finding a few stray petals hidden in the depths, and touch the artful curves and hollows of their body, the arches of muscle and bone. 

You lead them to your bed, and soon the thought _you are mine, you are mine, you are mine, forever and ever_ beats a counterpoint to the rhythm of your bodies.

It is the most exquisite music you have ever experienced.

.

You soon discover that there are many things your Master's notes did not explain about the nature of the one resurrected by the spell.

To begin with, unlike their demeanor in life, your beloved now displays neither modesty or shame at being constantly naked in your presence. The sight is certainly enjoyable at first, and combined with their wordless obedience often inflames your ardor, but as the novelty fades, you decide that clothing them will be a welcome variation. Although they allow you to dress them, the first time you take them to a mirror to show them how they look, they cringe and shred your gifts. 

Thereafter you keep the mirrors covered.

You also quickly learn that your beloved will not wash or groom themselves unless constantly reminded, and you regret not retaining a risen servant to take care of such tasks for you. Fortunately, it seems that neither does your beloved need to eat. Oh, they will take a mouthful or a sip if you ask them to do so, but as they neither chew nor swallow, the result is both messy and a waste of good food and wine. You quickly decide that it is less bothersome and less costly to have you beloved simply sit and watch you while you dine, although when this scrutiny becomes wearying, you begin sending them to another room before you sit down to your meals. 

The worst of it, however, is that your beloved never laughs or smiles or makes a sound. In the time before, when they were alive, you had often entertained yourself with the idyllic pleasure of having them read or sing to you as the two of you relaxed by the fire; now, when you place a book in their hands and urge them to read, they do nothing but sit, unblinking and mute.

Increasingly bewildered by this behavior, one day you decide to test whether they are silent because they are unable to speak, or because they are unwilling to speak. You take a jeweled pin and prick their finger; when there is no response, you draw the tip of the pin across their palm, hard enough to leave a shockingly bloodless gash, but still they are silent.

Irritated now, you slap them, and though their mouth opens and there is a brief flash of emotion across their face, they make no sound.

At this something breaks in you and you begin to hit them, over and over again, until they are cowering on the floor, their arms curved over their head… and yet they still do not provide you the satisfaction of hearing even the faintest cry. They give you _nothing_. For a moment you are tempted to force yourself on them, but you realize that lovemaking without any response from the beloved has become utterly repellent to you, as has their clammy flesh.

Your beloved seems to read the disgust in your face, and so, without a word, they drag themselves to the hole of the oubliette and let themselves fall down into the darkness.

You wait for long, hopeful minutes, straining your ears for the sounds you are certain will come, sounds of sobbing and pleading, but there is nothing.

The black hole of the oubliette appears to be a gaping, accusing mouth, and you scramble away, feeling ill. 

At first you are full of self-loathing, but as this ebbs you instead become furious at your former Master. Why was there no warning about how defective the result of a resurrection could be! They must have known your beloved would come back so… _wrong!_ Why else would they have begged you to burn the notebook? 

Unless… unless the fault was with you. Could you have performed the spell incorrectly? If so, you have an obligation to understand your mistake, and to do what you can to make it right.

You are resolved. You had sent the bulk of your own library away, but surely you will find answers in one of the Great Libraries of the realm!

You take care to disguise yourself before going above ground—you are, after all, supposed to have fled—but it seems you needn't have bothered. The scandal of your love for your apprentice, and their untimely death, has been forgotten, and the gossips have moved on to other things. Still, you take care not to draw attention to yourself as you travel from one city to the next, spending hours pouring over books forbidden to lesser adepts. You find some traces of the spell your Master used, but instead of illumination you find only allusions and riddles and coy promises.

From time to time you think of your beloved, waiting for you in that dark hiding place under the earth, but you soothe your guilt by telling yourself that at least they are safe from further harm.

One night, as you return to your deserted mansion from your latest expedition, you decide to rummage in the old ironbound chest for something clean to wear. As you do, you notice, at the very bottom of the chest, like a timid moth hiding on a scaly tree, a single folded sheet of parchment. One edge is ragged, as if torn from a notebook.

With trembling hands you take it up.

It is your Master's handwriting. You read _Too late I have learned, my love, that the cost of revival is paid by the one revived. What matter if soma be restored, if pneuma is not? Without breath there can be no song; without spirit there can be no joy; without soul there can be no love._

How could you have been so blind, so cruel? Yes, you had cheated the god of death of their prize, but instead you had, albeit unknowingly, entombed your beloved in pain. The pain of silence, of joylessness, of heartlessness. And then… and then, because you had thought they were being willful, withholding affection from you to be cruel, you had punished and abandoned them.

Your breath stops as you hold the page closer to the candle's flame. Glistening red words, in letters splattered and blotched as if by rain or tears, appear below your Master's words: a second spell, of Release and Return. 

You race through the empty mansion, down and down the stairs, through the stale rooms, stopping only to relight the candle as you approach the oubliette.

Below you, in the darkness of the pit, is your beloved's upturned face. You finally see that the eyes you once thought as blank as ice are filled, not with fury or hatred or reproach, but with confusion and sadness.

You reach down a hand, pull them up, embrace them. "I am sorry," you say. "I cannot help but think of you as my Beloved, even though I know that person is gone."

Still as beautiful and translucent as agate, the revenant is solemn, and, for the first time, attentive.

"I found a spell," you say. "Shall I let you go?"

They nod slowly, and though it may be a trick of the light, it seems the corner of their mouth turns up slightly, in the faintest echo of a smile, as they place a pale, cold hand over your heart.

.

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_ © 2019   
first post 17 August 2019; rev 17 October 2019_


	2. The Beloved's Story

.

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"Death becomes you," they say.

Death…

_(Drops glisten. Yellow green. Swallow. Fire. Shadows. Snow.)_

.

"Let me worship you, my beloved."

Gray sand. Black mouth. Black eyes. Gray hands.

_(An unfamiliar room. Smoke burns your eyes. You kneel. Gold and blue scrapes your face. The axe falls. Everything is lost.)_

.

"You are mine, forever," they say.

They arrange you. You do not fit inside this form.

The bed is gray. The walls are black. The candle flame cannot be borne. They banish it as they crawl over you.

_(You carry water in a broken bucket. Your feet are caked with mud.)_

.

"How elegant you look!"

They pull you to a dark pool. A horror waits inside.

_(A drowned bird. A snared rabbit, mangled and bloody. You tear at false skin, spilling beetles and maggots.)_

.

"Don't you remember?" They place something in your hands. "You used to read and sing to me all the time."

The gray pages are blank. 

_(The sunlight is a stairway. Towers of fragrant, singing jewels.)_

.

"Eat. Drink." 

Teeth and tongue and throat.

They send you away. You wait alone.

_(Celebration. Savory crackle-skinned roast. Golden sky mead skimmed with foam. The miracle of warm bread. Bowls heaped with welcome. The fragrance of strawberries. Joy and comfort. Home.)_

.

"At least wash yourself! Do I have to do everything?"

They wring and squeeze the cloth. They rub face, armpits, legs.

_(The sky, smooth with dark clouds, drops a fine rain that gilds your face with mist.)_

.

"I know the game you are playing!"

They press a pin into your finger, then across your palm. The skin splits like a mouth.

This displeases them. They hit you. 

_(A shovel pounds the seed back into the earth. Leaves retract. The stem collapse/ Roots fold and fold under and under, away from the soil. Away from the murmuring river.)_

They mean to transplant you. They drag you to the new hole. 

You understand. You push yourself down into darkness.

Their blood thuds above you. They are nearby, listening. What do they want from you now?

_(There is a stone at the bottom of a well. Stones do not need food or water or sleep or companionship or light; they do not feel loneliness or fear or boredom or anger. They are just stones.)_

.

Above you, their face eclipses the circle of light.

"I am sorry," they say, reaching down a hand to pull you up. "I cannot help but think of you as my Beloved, even though I know that person is gone."

_(Their hand placed over your own guided you. The approval in their eyes gave you confidence. Their selfishness buried you.)_

"I found a spell. Shall I let you go?"

You remember what it is to smile as you reach for the scarlet glow of their heart.

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_~ The End ~_

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©2019 _first post 18 Aug 2019; revised 7 Sept 2019_


End file.
